Page Type: Elementary

A bicycle can change a person’s life. That’s why, for more than 25 years, an organization called Working Bikes has provided bicycles to anyone who needs one.

Located in Chicago, Illinois, Working Bikes is no ordinary bicycle shop. Rather than get its bicycle supply from bike manufacturers, the organization receives donated bicycles from Illinois and the surrounding U.S. states. Hundreds of volunteers repair and refurbish the bicycles until they’re like new and ready for a new owner. Working Bikes teaches the volunteers how to repair the bikes.

“[All the volunteers are] kind of like-minded,” Working Bikes cofounder Amy Little told Streetsblog Chicago in 2024. “You’re doing it because you want to help other people. You’re in it together and fixing bikes or loading bicycles into a container because you feel strongly about it.”

A small fraction of these repaired bikes are sold. The rest are given away, often to kids and adults in the Chicago area.

Other donated bikes, as well as bike parts, are shipped overseas to Mexico, Central and South America, Africa, and other parts of the world. Working Bikes has formed partnerships with several international organizations. One of them, in the African nation of Uganda, uses the donations to teach women how to repair bikes.

Each year in April and May, a TV show has people in Sweden glued to their screens. The show doesn’t have a lot of action. It’s not funny or dramatic, either. Called The Great Moose Migration, the show follows a group of moose that are migrating from one part of Sweden to another.

The Great Moose Migration, which is shown on Swedish TV and on the Internet, follows moose on a journey the animals take every spring. Dozens of moose in northern Sweden swim across the Ångerman River to grazing pastures, where there are plants and berries for them to eat.

The show could be described as reality TV, but it’s actually a livestream. Cameras that have been posted along the moose migration path let viewers see moose, or any other animal, when they pass by.

The livestream is often called “slow TV” because it’s usually not very exciting. Sometimes nothing happens for hours. But many viewers stay tuned so they don’t miss a thing. They never know when they’ll spot a moose.

“I feel relaxed [watching the show], but at the same time I’m like, ‘Oh, there’s a moose. Oh, what if there’s a moose? I can’t [take a break]!’” 20-year-old William Garp Liljefors told the Associated Press.

Before people had written language, historic events and stories still needed to be passed down to young people. But how? Some cultures used storytelling and poetry to record and share history. The native people of Hawaii (called Hawaiʻi in their language) used hula dancing. Today, young hula dancers help keep the tradition alive. 

Dancers aged 6 to 12 perform keiki hula, which means “children’s hula” in Hawaiian. Each July, hundreds of children from across the Hawaiian Islands come together for the Queen Lili‘uokalani Keiki Hula Competition. This three-day event is named in honor of the last monarch to rule Hawaii before the islands became part of the United States. (A monarch is a king or queen.) 

The competition celebrates the passing of tradition from one generation to the next. Native Hawaiians did not have a written language until the 1820s. For centuries, they used hula to tell mythical and historical stories about people, places, and gods and goddesses. Keiki hula ensures children will help preserve this important part of their culture.

Which women’s ice hockey team will take the gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics? It’s set to be a showdown between the United States and Canada. The U.S. won the 2025 Women’s Hockey World Championship on April 20, defeating Canada 4–3. Throughout the game, both teams showed why they’re the best in the world.

Tess Janecke scored the winning goal for the U.S. with less than three minutes remaining in overtime. As cheers erupted, Janecke threw her stick into the air and hugged one of her teammates.

“Just shows how strong we are as a group and how much we can persevere through anything. I wouldn’t want to do it with any other group,” Janecke later told The Sports Network (TSN).

It was a close game. The U.S. scored the first two goals in the second period for a 2–0 lead, but Canada tied the game quickly with two goals of their own. The U.S. secured another goal in the third period, only to be matched by Canada for a score of 3–3. With a tie at the end of the third period, the match was forced into overtime.

“The margins for error are so small,” Canadian head coach Troy Ryan told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “Multiple times in that overtime or even in the third, either [team] could have won it.”

“What’s for dinner?” If you’ve ever asked that question, you were probably speaking to an adult. But experts say there are plenty of good reasons for kids to learn how to cook.

Becca Cooper Leebove knows this firsthand. Five years ago, she began teaching her kids, then ages 3 and 8, some simple cooking skills. They started by pouring ingredients into a bowl and rolling out dough. Today, they’re chopping and sauteing.

“My…goal has always been family time—something to do together that’s engaging, but also important to get them off their phones or iPads,” Leebove told the Associated Press.

Making a meal also teaches kids what experts call “food skills.” These include planning the meal, grocery shopping, reading food labels, and preparing the meal. By cooking, kids learn to follow a recipe, measure ingredients, and manage their time. All these skills will come in handy later, when kids grow up and have their own households.

There’s also some evidence that when kids help to cook a meal, they’re more likely to eat ingredients they’d normally reject. Some kids refuse to even try certain vegetables. But picky eaters might be more willing to taste the vegetables that they chopped and cooked.

That could tie in with another advantage to cooking from scratch: Studies show a link between cooking and healthier eating habits.

For all these reasons, kids’ cooking classes are widely available, including at many public libraries.

Jessica Battilana is a staff editor at King Arthur Baking Company, where both kids and adults can take cooking classes. She suggests that kids start by preparing simple dishes, like scrambled eggs, and gradually try more challenging recipes. Good cooking doesn’t have to be fancy.

“[Kids are] capable of a lot, and usually pretty eager to try new foods—especially if they’ve had a hand in making them,” Battilana told the Associated Press.

It takes a lot of energy to make LEGO plastic bricks. But a new LEGO factory in Vietnam is aiming to manufacture the bricks in a way that’s as kind to the environment as possible.

The factory, which opened near Ho Chi Minh City on April 9 and is one of six LEGO factories in the world, will make LEGO bricks for customers in Southeast Asia. Production will involve both humans and machines: Skilled workers will operate robots, which will make the plastic bricks by melting different colored plastic grains and pouring them into molds.

The factory is enormous—as large as 62 soccer fields. That means it requires plenty of electricity.

But if all goes as planned, the factory will produce its own power by early 2026 with the help of 12,400 solar panels. The panels will capture the Sun’s energy (its light) and then convert it into electricity, which will be stored in giant batteries.

Why use solar panels? Many other forms of energy require fuels such as oil or coal. These fuels are in limited supply and produce pollution called greenhouse gases when they’re burned to make electricity. But since the Sun is like a light bulb that never burns out, solar energy can be collected again and again. Solar energy also produces less pollution than many other types of energy.

Do you ever ask yourself, “What kinds of birds are in my neighborhood?” Scientists have a similar question: What kinds of birds are living in every part of the world? The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) aims to get answers, and this year’s results were impressive!

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual, four-day event. During the GBBC, everyone, anywhere in the world, is encouraged to count birds in their backyard or some other location of their choosing. The 2025 count took place from February 14 to February 17.

Participants were asked to spend at least 15 minutes counting birds and then use an app or website to identify the birds and to report what they saw or heard. Some people sent photos of the birds they found. Others sent recordings of birdsongs.

You’re never too young to make a difference. At age 12, Prasiddhi Singh is leading a campaign to plant more trees, and she hopes other kids will do the same.

Prasiddhi was 4 years old in 2016, when a type of storm called a cyclone caused major destruction in the region of India where she lives. The storm brought rain and wind so strong that it uprooted huge trees.

Trees are important for many reasons. They improve air quality by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. They also feed and shelter birds, mammals, and insects. Trees can even help reduce the effects of flooding by slowing the flow of floodwater. Overall, trees help reduce the effects of climate change.

After the cyclone in India, many people worked to plant new trees where the old ones had been lost. Prasiddhi, whose parents had taught her about the importance of trees, was among these helpers.

Prasiddhi began to think about what else she could do. In 2018, the year she turned 6, she set a personal goal to help plant 100,000 trees. To help her reach her goal, she founded the Prasiddhi Forest Foundation later that year.

“I had multiple questions come into my mind,” Prasiddhi explained in a video she posted to her YouTube channel. “For example, where will I plant? What will I plant? Who will take care of [what I plant]?”

With permission, Prasiddhi decided to plant trees at schools, on public lands, and in other places where there would be people to care for delicate saplings (baby trees) as they grew into strong adult trees. She chose fruit trees, which support many different types of animals.

So far, with help from partners in 20 countries, Prasiddhi and the rest of the team at her foundation have planted 150,000 trees!

Prasiddhi has been recognized around the world for her efforts. Now, she wants to inspire other kids to find ways to help solve problems. Simple actions can lead to big results, she said on YouTube.

“I believe that a single step, a single drop, a single impact together can [make] a huge difference,” said Prasiddhi.

Imagine a store giving away some of its items for free. Tesco, a supermarket in the United Kingdom (U.K.), has decided to do just that.

In a small number of Tesco stores, and on a trial basis for now, Tesco plans to give away the food items that are about to expire, as part of its effort to reduce food waste. The items, which will be marked with a yellow sticker, will be free after 9:30 p.m. They’ll be offered to charities and supermarket employees first. What’s left will then be offered to customers.

When a food item expires, it can no longer be sold and must be thrown away. Because of this, supermarkets all over the world waste a lot of food. It’s an issue that many supermarkets have been trying to address. 

Tesco wants to reduce its food waste by 50 percent by the end of 2025. Like other supermarkets in the U.K., it already donates a lot of the food that hasn’t sold to food banks and other charities. But this has not been enough. The company hopes that offering items to customers at the end of the day will further reduce the amount of food it throws away.

The plan comes at a time when food prices are rising, and many people are struggling to pay their bills. In the U.K. alone, more than 1 in 10 people are “food insecure,” which means they skip meals because they cannot afford enough food. Food insecurity is a problem in many other nations as well.

Tesco is hoping its plan will not only reduce food waste but also give more people the opportunity to fill their fridges.

It’s not easy to be a baby bird in a rainforest. Monkeys, snakes, and insects all prey on helpless chicks. But scientists believe that one type of hummingbird chick has an amazing way to scare off hungry predators. It pretends to be a caterpillar!

Scientists made this discovery while observing the nest of a hummingbird species called the white-necked jacobin, which lives in the tropical rainforests of Panama. When one of the eggs hatched, the scientists were surprised that the chick was covered in long brown feathers. Most types of hummingbirds are born without their feathers, which grow in as they get older.

The surprises didn’t end there. As scientists watched the tiny chick, they noticed that it was twitching and shaking its head. They had never seen birds move like this. The chick’s appearance and movements reminded the scientists of a caterpillar.

“I started texting a video [of the chick] to people and asking them, ‘What does this look like?’” Scott Taylor, a scientist who specializes in birds, told the University of Colorado Boulder. “And [they all said], ‘That looks like a caterpillar.’ It was very exciting.”

Taylor and the other scientists began researching caterpillars that live in the rainforest. They found some that are covered in brown hairs, similar to the hummingbird chick’s feathers. These rainforest caterpillars fight off predators by stinging them. The venom, or poison, they deliver can be deadly. They also shake their heads when they feel threatened, just like the hummingbird chick.

The day after the chick hatched, a type of wasp that eats chicks approached the nest. It was then that scientists observed something amazing. The mother bird was away, but the chick was able to defend itself. In response to the wasp, the chick began shaking its head, and the wasp flew away. Scientists now believe that white-necked jacobin chicks mimic, or copy, venomous caterpillars in order to scare predators away.

The scientists are excited to learn more.

“We know so little about what nesting birds do in the tropics,” Jay Falk, a bird specialist who was part of the discovery team, said in a statement. “But if we put more effort into observing the natural world, we might discover these kinds of behaviors are very common.”